when my stepfather died, my never-a-jw husband and I went to the memorial service. The elder started the sermon (that's all it was) with "Ken died of SIN!" Followed by an hour talk about why Jesus died, just as if it was the usual Sunday meeting. My husband was astounded, he still talks about it and it has been seven or eight years since then. He just couldn't believe how impersonal and negative it all was.
Then my mother died a couple of years later and one of my dear non-JW friends, who was also my mother's chiropractor, went to the memorial service as a supportive gesture. Similar sort of talk, mostly focusing on how my mother loved to go in service, and that the only reason she was sad to die was that she wouldn't be able to go in service any more. Hoo boy, that sounds really weird to an outsider. My friend asked me what it all meant, and why the singing was so awful. I just laughed - JWs have their own weird way of doing things. My husband didn't even go to this one, he offered to but I told him to skip it. He kept saying over and over, "Ken died of SIN!" and asked me if they talked about my mother that way too.
But the most amazing was when my own father died, about 30 years ago. He was never a JW, in fact died of alcoholism. We hadn't seen him in years and didn't miss him, which is a sad statement, but my mother insisted on a memorial service at the kingdom hall and the congregation obliged. They all know perfectly well that by their own beliefs there was no way in hell (pun) that my father would make it in the resurrection. However, they gave the same sort of Sunday meeting sermon, about the resurrection and when they mentioned my father, which wasn't often, they sort of shrugged. Strange strange strange.